Dell contemplated the ball in his hand. Ran his thumb along the seam.
“Had actually just kind of started something up with someone, right before I got the call about my mom,” he admitted. “So…unfortunate timing, I guess. Not that there’s probably ever a good time for a parent to have a stroke.”
“Or get cancer.”
“Yeah. That too.”
Another easy pause in conversation. Nothing but the whistle of the ball, the soft thud of it hitting leather.
“Bet she’s waiting for you, though,” Chris said. “The girl you just started seeing. You’re a good guy. Worth waiting for.”
And there Dell was, caught between an almost surprisingly earnest compliment and the discomfort of Chris’s assumption. Made, Dell knew, without ill intent. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what Chris’s reaction would’ve been if he was with Luca.
Or if he was with LucaandMae.
Which led him to wondering, as he often did—especially during these long, lonely days of being back home—how Luca was doing. If he was back in Alaska. If he was still writing his book.
Dell chucked the ball toward his old friend.
“They’re nonbinary, actually,” he said. Even though he didn’t know if that was the nomenclature Mae preferred. Still, he felt the need to do right by her, as well as he could.
Chris caught the ball. Shrugged.
“All right,” he said. Chucked it back. “Point stands.”
Dell caught it with a smile.
* * *
While Georgia’s therapists used ropes and balls and other various implements to retrain Georgia’s brain in how to use her body, Dell was issued the responsibility of board games.
She’d been moved to a different wing of the tiny county hospital; flowers and treats Georgia still wasn’t quite able to swallow on her own adorned every surface. And in the corner of the room, a stack of old games Dell had unearthed from the closet across from the laundry room back at the house, their cardboard corners held together with curling masking tape.
In the middle of another round of Candyland on a Wednesday afternoon, an incoming text made Dell’s phone buzz on Georgia’s bedside table, beside the drooping lilies from Rosemary Clark, one of Georgia’s best old teacher friends. Georgia motioned for him to check it as she struggled to flip over another of the small paper tiles.
Buffalo Springfield and Jackie Wilson played from a small portable speaker the hospital had brought in. The Beach Boys and Herman’s Hermits. This was supposed to help Georgia’s brain, too. She hummed, moved her toes.
“Smiling,” she said a few seconds later, and Dell looked up from his phone screen. “You.” She reached over and poked him in the belly. Her eyes were bright, the frustration of trying to hold onto tiny objects flown away. “Tell me.”
Dell glanced back down at the photo of Young wrestling with a new toy. He wondered if she’d bought it from Cara.
“Mae just sent me a picture of one of the dogs.”
He held it out for Georgia to see.
“Young,” he reminded her. “Collie mix. She’s the newest member of the pack.”
Georgia only looked, a faint smile lifting both corners of her mouth.
Dell moved to put the phone back down, but Georgia grabbed hold of his wrist, demanding to look at the photo longer. The strength of her grip—not overwhelming, but an undeniable pressure—made Dell’s lungs inflate with hope.
But when she finally released him, turning back to the game, she didn’t comment on Dell’s dogs at all.
“Mae,” she said instead, moving her tiny man to the next green space. Her smile deepened. “That’s right.”
twenty-eight
“Doyou just feel like vomiting all the time?” Vik asked. “I feel like vomiting and it’s not even my store.”
